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Sunday, June 10, 2018

“Earthly Tents and Everlasting Homes”

1 Samuel 8: 4-20

Sunday, June 10, 2018
First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Earlier this week, I had a rather
terrifying phone conversation. I was sitting in my car in Aggieville at 8:45 in
the morning waiting to my yoga class to start, making phone calls to my
legislators offices in D.C. I like to call them first thing in the morning to
share my views so I can cross it off my list for the day. Also, it’s convenient
to call them right before I go to yoga, because sometimes I need help calming
down after I get off the phone.

So I was calling all of my
legislators because I felt so helpless and enraged about stories of young
children being separated from their parents at our borders. As best as I can
understand from consulting numerous news outlets, we are attempting to
discourage asylum seekers and other immigrants from coming to our country by
threatening them with terror at their point of entry.

Parents with young children, beware.
If you try to flee your own war-torn country to come here and you have a child
with you, we will take that child from you, force you to buckle them into a car
seat, refuse to let you say goodbye, make you watch as a stranger drives them
off while they are sobbing uncontrollably, tell you you’ll probably be reunited
with them later, and then put you both in separate detention facilities - most
likely very far apart from each other. Your child may end up sleeping on the
floor in a large cage in a warehouse-type situation while you struggle each day
to figure out where they are and if they’re okay.

This is a parent’s worst nightmare.
I can hardly read these stories without feeling my body being taken over by a
total and complete rage. The type of rage that makes me want to throw things
and scream expletives.

So I took some deep breaths before
calling my legislators’ offices and stayed calm and collected while on the
phone with their staffers. I did my best to convey my extreme dismay without
raising my voice or crying. I began by asking them what their bosses were doing
about these human rights violations at our borders. When I discovered none of them
were doing anything, except maybe waiting around for some legislation that
might be introduced later this month, I pressed further. “This is a
humanitarian crisis,” I said calmly. “Isn’t there some way Congress can take
emergency action to do something and keep these families intact?”

One of the staff members told me
this: “Well, it’s really the President’s policy. He’s the only one who can
change it.”

I said, “Are we living in an
authoritarian regime now? Are you telling me we no longer have any checks and
balances in our democracy? I was under the impression that Congress played an
important role in governing our country. Is it just one man making all the
decisions now for all of us in the United States?”

Friends, I confess. I may have used
a very stern voice at this point. But I also promise you that before I got off
the phone, I thanked this staff member for his time and told him that I knew
none of this was his fault.

I sometimes have a hard time staying
calm when I observe the way our government behaves. I often feel powerless,
which seems strange since we are supposed to live in a democracy. I keep
calling my representatives even though I usually feel like it makes no
difference at all. And I’ll keep voting even though I have serious doubts about
whether elections in our country are truly free and fair.

I carry a lot of anxiety about who
we are as a nation and where we’re headed next. And I know I’m not alone.
Anxiety about the political landscape is nothing new, of course. It’s just that
I’ve been feeling it more acutely lately. So I’ve come up with coping
mechanisms. I keep my legislators on speed dial. I nurture my most helpful
spiritual practices like yoga - which helps me suspend judgment and stay
present in the moment - and long walks, which gives me time to pause and enjoy
the world around me.

I’ve been putting in extra effort to
effect change within three feet of myself - smiling at strangers, looking
around when I’m in public to see if anyone needs extra encouragement or a kind
word. My husband would also tell you I’ve been coping by reading a lot about
20th century authoritarian regimes in Latin America, Russia, and Europe. The
jury’s still out on whether or not that’s a helpful coping mechanism.

Reading today’s text from 1 Samuel
felt a bit like a balm for my weary soul. The people of Israel are frustrated
and fed up with their government. Samuel, who has been functioning as a priest,
prophet, ruler for many years, is growing old. He’s attempting to pass the
reins to his sons, but they don’t walk in the ways of their father. They are
corrupt and the people of Israel aren’t having it.

So they come to Samuel and say,
“Look. This whole thing with priests and prophets and judges has been fine for
a while. But now we’re looking around and seeing the way other nations handle
themselves. They all have kings. We want a king.”

Samuel responds with a mini-lecture
about the pitfalls inherent in monarchical government. “Kings are pretty much
good for this:” he says, “Taking your sons and daughters. Getting them killed
in wars and using them in grotesque ways. Taking your property - mostly your
best stuff. Making you into slaves. That’s what kings are good for.”

“Great!” respond the people. “Sign
us up!”

I imagine Samuel heaving a deep and
heavy sigh as he retires to his study to have a little talk with Yahweh. “God,
what am I supposed to do?” he wonders aloud. “They won’t listen to me.”

God tells Samuel, “Give them what
they’ve asked for. Give them a king.”

The entire history of Israel’s
leadership in the Bible goes like this….leaders come and leaders go. They go by
different names - priests, prophets, judges, kings. Some of them do okay for a
while but, in the end, nothing works for long. The people do what humans do
best - mess up. They ignore God. They worship idols. They kill each other. Things
fall apart. So they find a new leader or even a new form of government. And
maybe it works….for a time. But never for long.

This story from 1 Samuel feels like
a bit of a comfort to me, swimming in all my own anxieties about the state of
the world in 2018, for two reasons. First, it reminds us that God cares about
politics. God cares about the ways we govern ourselves. God knows that the ways
we humans choose to organize ourselves, the rules we make and enforce, and the
ways we decide to come together and get things done mattes deeply. God never
says “follow this six-point plan and you’ll have a perfect government” (now
that would be nice!) and God certainly isn’t partisan. God allegiance lies only
with God, not with any earthly ruler or political group.

But God cares deeply about the way
we humans govern ourselves and our political systems. We are told again and
again in our sacred texts that we are to be active and involved in the world
around us. We are made for living in community with one another - to bear one
another’s burdens share each other’s joys. And people never live in community
for long without rules - both formal and informal. Rules for being together
turn into culture and are solidified into systems of government. God cares
deeply about these systems that govern us.

The second thing I am reminded of by
this story is this: our governments do not rule us completely. God is our
ruler. God is the one constant force that is present whether kingdoms rise or
fall, democracies live or die, regimes flourish or crumble. To say that God
cares about governments and God cares about politics is never to attempt make
the Holy into a puppet of earthly powers.

As we ponder the world around us, we
are to read the actions of governments through the lens of God, not the other
way around. Our decisions about how to relate to one another must be ultimately
anchored in our understanding of how God calls us to act, not party affiliation
or allegiance to any charismatic leader.

Please note: looking at the world
through God-lenses isn’t as simple as reading the Bible. The Bible is one very
important way that we come to understand the Holy but the Bible is not actually
God. Decisions about how to act have to be made within the context of a trusted
community that is rooted deeply in it’s relationship with God. The community
must be sustained by rich spiritual practices like worship, prayer, sharing
sacred stories and art, and serving the world together. When a faith community
- whether it’s a small family or a formal congregation - is strong in its
foundations, people within that community will be able to prayerfully make
decisions together and speak hard truths to one another in love.

This is a lot more work than opening
up the Bible as if it were a Magic 8 ball and hoping it will tell us what to
do. But if we stay faithful to one another and take seriously our
responsibility to seek God together, we can ponder what’s going on in the world
through God’s eyes. And when we start to veer off course - when, for example,
Christians start to do things like claim God wants them to discriminate against
gay people, then the community can say, “You know what? I don’t think that’s
right. Let’s ponder this more together. Let’s remember that the whole scope of
the Bible tends toward love. Let’s see how God is present in people of every
sexual orientation. Let’s choose love over fear.”

This story from 1 Samuel reminds us
that God cares deeply about the ways we choose to govern ourselves. God is
always standing nearby, beckoning us to choose love, encouraging us to walk in
the ways of justice and peace. When earthly powers vie for our allegiance and
demand that we bow down to human-made idols, God whispers into our hearts that
our only true North Star is the Holy One whose name is Love.

Kings come and go. Nations rise and
fall. Humans get it right for a time and then get it, oh, so wrong. With the
psalmist, we cry out to God from the depths of our anxieties.

And with Paul we remember that
though the earthly tents we inhabit may be destroyed, we are always at home in
God, abiding in that Holy house that was not made my human hands, but exists
now and then and forever and ever. Amen.